Katharine Trendacosta

Katharine Trendacosta

Policy Analyst

Katharine is a policy analyst at EFF, focusing on intellectual property, net neutrality, fair use, free speech online, and intermediary liability. Before joining EFF, Katharine spent many years as a writer and editor at the science fiction and science website io9, while also contributing occasionally to io9’s sister publications Deadspin, Jezebel, and Gizmodo. Katharine got a BA in history at Columbia University and a JD at USC Gould School of Law, doing work with the USC Intellectual Property and Technology Law Clinic. It was Katharine’s experience in media that lead to her going to law school with an eye to learning more about fair use and copyright law. She’s excited to be melding both her legal and writing background together at the EFF.

Deeplinks Posts by Katharine

We're taking part in Copyright Week, a series of actions and discussions supporting key principles that should guide copyright policy. Every day this week, various groups are taking on different elements of copyright law and policy, and addressing what's at stake, and what we need to do to make...

We're taking part in Copyright Week, a series of actions and discussions supporting key principles that should guide copyright policy. Every day this week, various groups are taking on different elements of copyright law and policy, and addressing what's at stake, and what we need to do to make...

In the waning hours of 2017, the Federal Communications Commission voted to repeal the 2015 Open Internet Order, ending net neutrality protections for the millions of Americans who support them. The fallout of that decision continued all throughout 2018, with attempts to reverse the FCC in Congress, new state laws...

Almost exactly a year ago, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted to strip net neutrality protections from the Internet and reclassify Internet Service Providers as an “information service” rather than a “common carrier” telecommunications one. This year, the FCC has voted to classify text messaging the same way...

Social media platform Tumblr has announced a ban on so-called “adult content,” a move made, it seems, in reaction to Tumblr’s app being removed from the Apple app store. But while making the app more available is in theory good for Tumblr users, in practice what’s about to...

Update 12/03/2018: The December 4 hearing has been postponed, but it could be rescheduled. Keep telling the Senate to vote "no." With just a week left for this Congress, one of the weirdest bad copyright bills is back on the calendar. The “Register of Copyrights Selection and Accountability Act” would...

Welcome to a brand new kind of whodunnit. This one has everything: an extremely popular game, a short-lived takedown, and so very many memes. The ways of the DMCA and YouTube are unknown and unknowable. Trailers are a time-tested and proven way of getting attention for a new piece of...

While there may not be consensus on what they are, there is a shared belief that U.S. copyright law has some serious problems. But the CASE Act, which aims to treat copyright claims like traffic tickets, is not the answer. On Thursday, August 27, the House Judiciary Committee held a...

Here’s the thing about different people playing the same piece of music: sometimes, they’re going to sound similar. And when music is by a composer who died 268 years ago, putting his music in the public domain, a bunch of people might record it and some of them might put...